Schooner Louis V. Place

This account is one of many fine historicial accounts of Wrecks and
Rescues on Long Island as published by Van R. Field in his book "Wrecks and Rescues on Long
Island," The Story of the U.S Life Saving Service. Copies are available from
the author Van R.
Field 17 Inwood Road Center Moriches, NY 11934 email: w2oqi@optonline.net

One of the best known and
written about shipwrecks off Long Island was that of the LOUIS V. PLACE,
occurring just east of the Lone Hill Lifesaving station on February 8, 1895. It
occurred during a time when extremely cold and stormy weather prevailed on the
atlantic coast from Florida to New England. The temperature in Florida on the
day of the wreck was the lowest on record, while in New York City it was zero.
Wind velocities were as high as 72 miles per hour at Woods Hole, 68 miles per
hour at Block Island and 53 miles per hour at Sandy Hook. It was snowing all
along the coast from North Carolina to Canada on the seventh and eighth. From
the sixth through the ninth the USLSS had twenty nine vessels with a total of
one hundred and twenty nine crew, meet with storm and sea related disasters.
With the exception of the LOUIS V. PLACE there was no loss of
life.

The 163
foot, three masted schooner LOUIS V PLACE, built in 1890, sailed from Baltimore
for New York with 1100 tons of coal for cargo. She left January 28 and was off
Cape Charles, Virginia on February 4. By February 5 she was in heavy weather and
her sails, rigging and hull were icing up. On the 6th the weather moderated
somewhat. On the 7th the gale shifted to the north-northeast blowing violently
and the weather became overcast. The ice, high winds and bitter cold all made it
difficult to handle the ship. The upper sails were reefed and the ice made the
remaining sails hard to work. Around two a.m. on the 8th, the storm hauled to
the westward with even greater fury causing a wild and dangerous cross sea. The
crew had now been subjected to four days and nights of bitter exposure to the
elements with little or no sleep. Captain Squires believed he was near Sandy
Hook. By seven a.m. the vessel was essentially a drifting iceberg, almost
totally unmanageable, her running gear frozen in the blocks, her sails stiff
with ice and her deck sheeted with ice. The visibility was almost zero. By eight
a.m. the captain had completely lost his bearings, but was sure he was near
land. The lead was cast and he found that he was in eight fathoms of water.
Although the vessel was leaking badly, his intention was to anchor. He so
informed the crew and passed out a ration of whiskey, urging them to move about
to keep warm. The crew in their weakened condition were unable to cut the
anchors free of the ice. The captain then ordered the men to put on all the
clothing they could wear and remain on the aft part of the ship. Cutting the
halyards had made no difference. The sails would not move so the men simply
waited out whatever fate had in store for them. In about ten minutes they heard
the roar of the breakers ahead. A few minutes later the vessel lay pounding on
the bar with the seas breaking over the decks. The crew scrambled for the
rigging. About five minutes before she hit, she
was seen by a Lone Hill surf man Frederick H. Saunders on the beach. He ran for
the station and telephoned for assistance from the two adjacent stations, and
sent a messenger eastward to notify his own keeper and crew, who were at the
scene of the wreck of the JOHN B. MANNING which had stranded several hours
earlier between Lone Hill and Blue Point stations. Crews from both stations had
struggled through the storm with their equipment and had managed to rescue
everyone on board. The two wrecks were about a mile apart, the MANNING being
further east. This rescue was completed after twelve hours of hard work. The lifesavers set
out to return to their stations. They were tired and frostbitten. The Lone Hill
crew found it impossible to haul their beach apparatus back so it was left for a
later time. They began their trek back into the full fury of the gale with
blowing snow and sand in their faces. The temperature was between three and four
degrees.

The
stranded LOUIS V. PLACE was between three and four hundred yards off the beach,
near the Lone Hill station. The surf was sweeping her from end to end, and her
crew were seen in the port mizzen rigging whenever the snow squalls let up for a
few minutes. The tide was high. The surf was very heavy and filled with a
grinding mass of porridge ice two feet deep. There was a gale force wind
blowing. The beach was strewn with cakes of ice piled in some places six to
eight feet high. Witnesses reported seeing twenty foot breakers. Under such
conditions there was no way a boat could be launched or rowed through such a
mess. The only hope of rescue was by breeches buoy. While the lifesavers were
rigging the Lyle gun, two men on the ship lower on the mast, where the waves
constantly drenched them, were seen to drop into the sea and disappear. They
later proved to be the Captain and the cook. This appalling sight, so early in
the rescue attempt made the would be rescuers realize that those aboard were
already in bad shape. The Lyle gun was fired and the line landed too far from
those aboard. It was fired a second time and the line landed close enough that
the crew should have been able to reach it easily. However they made no move to
retrieve the line upon which their lives depended. Today we would conclude that
hypothermia had set in to such an extent that they were incapable of rational
thought or action.

The surf men left the line in place and fired a third shot, which
also fell within reach. When it cleared for a short time around one a.m., a
fourth line was fired but it missed the vessel.

Shortly thereafter the weather closed in
again, obscuring the wreck from view for about three hours. When it became
possible to again see the wreck, there were only four men left in the rigging.
The gun was fired for a fifth time, but before it could be seen where the line
landed, the weather closed in again. The short winter day was almost over. The
men stood ready to fire another line aboard the moment visibility returned. A
short while later they got their chance. The line landed aboard across the
top-foremast stay. There was still enough light to see that the men on the ship
did not move.

Darkness arrived, and with it all hope of getting a breeches buoy to the
ship before the next morning was gone. The night was wild and intensely cold.
The lifesavers huddled on the beach by the beacon fire hoping the storm would
abate enough to launch a boat, but no chance came. When daylight came, almost 24
hours had gone by since the stranding and there were apparently only two living
men left on the wreck. The third of the four who had been seen on the previous
day was in the crosstrees near the other two, frozen to death. The body of the
fourth hung in the rigging head downward, held by the lashings he placed around
himself, swaying to and fro in the merciless gale.

At sunrise the Lyle gun was fired again
and the line landed on the mizzen mast very close to the two remaining sailors.
Two more shots were fired. One fell across the hull. The tide was out and the
rail was out of the water. One of the men crawled down to it and feebly tried to
haul it in. He was unable to, so he climbed back up into the rigging. By now it
was three p.m. of the second day, and any hope of rescue by breeches buoy was
abandoned as it was plain that the sailors were too far gone to aid in their own
rescue.

The boat
was taken from the wagon to the water's edge and several attempts were made to
launch it into the ice laden surf, only to have it hurled back to shore. The
last attempt took place at sunset. The surfmen brought the boat back up the
beach a bit, only long enough to rest and wait for another opportunity to
present itself.

About midnight the tide was receding and the surf had fallen somewhat and the
wind had slacked off a bit. Forty hours had elapsed since the stranding and it
was now or never if the dying men were to be rescued. At last with a mighty push
they got the boat afloat with keeper Baker at the helm and keeper Rorke on an
oar. The seas were still running high and the ice pounded the boat. At last they
were able to come alongside the stricken vessel. Their shouts aroused the men in
the crosstrees. They carefully crept down the shrouds to the rail, where they
were helped into the surfboat and were swiftly brought back to shore. Once
there, they were transported to the station and cared for. Later they were sent
to the Marine Hospital at Stapleton, Staten Island, where one of them died a few
weeks later.

To
this tragic event there were large numbers of spectators who had made their way
across the frozen bay on the ice by horse and sleigh. An eyewitness account was
written by Dr. George King who was a schoolboy at the time. He tells of climbing
to the cupola of the school. With a spyglass he could see the masts of the two
ships. He tells the following story. "We started from Patchogue shortly after
nine o'clock and made the beach in less than four hours. We landed at Lone Hill
and immediately proceeded to the Lone Hill station, where we packed away our
provisions and blankets in the boathouse and rushed over to where the two wrecks
lay. The one farther to the east, which we first approached, was the three
masted schooner, JOHN B. MANNING. This ship had been literally lifted from the
water by the fury of the gale, and cast up on the beach. We did not tarry long
in her vicinity as farther west toward Lone Hill we could see the three masts of
the LOUIS V PLACE standing high above the surf. In the masts one could plainly
see and count the figures of eight human beings, it was an awful sight. We
rushed up the beach to give aid to the lifesavers in pulling their gun and
getting their breeches buoy and boat gear in position. There were many people
present, hardy individuals filled with the spirit of adventure and the desire to
aid. Several had come in sleighs drawn by horses, making the seven mile trip in
good time, and the drivers, having picked out a favorable road (on the ice), had
returned to the mainland for another load of passengers and supplies. By
nightfall the beach was literally crowded with people who had journeyed across
the bay, and it was a problem to know how they were to be kept during the night,
without their freezing to death. I was fortunate enough to be invited by Captain
Frank Rorke to stay in the lifesaving station with the crew, and was given a
place in the bunkroom, but many others slept in the boathouse, in horse sheds
and empty houses at Water Island.

At 9:30 a.m. Lt. Maguire, U.S.R.M.
Inspector of third district stations arrived with Doctor Overton of Patchogue. A
half hour later Doctor Robinson of Sayville arrived, having been summoned by the
keeper. The survivors were put in the care of the two physicians. They were
soon shipped off to the U.S. Marine hospital on Staten Island.

Seaman Stuvens gave the following
account of the events: "Captain Squires called all hands aft, gave us some grog
to keep the life in us and cautioned us to mind his orders exactly. Some time
later he ordered the men to cut the halyards to bring down the sails, but these
were frozen stiff and would not come down. It was a few minutes after that the
schooner struck the beach on the crest of a big wave.

"We knew that was her death blow, and
she bumped a few times, then settled with a slight list to port nearly broadside
to shore. Big seas broke over the deck and the schooner plunged with every wave
that swept over her. It was death to stay on deck and be swept away, while it
was a more lingering death to go aloft, but we chose the latter. Captain Squires
mounted the crosstrees on the foremast with Olsen and myself. Nelson, Morrison,
Allen, Ward and Jaiby were in the rigging on the other masts.

"We were all warmly clad but
nothing could keep such cold from our bones. The wind howled through the rigging
and the flying spray froze on us so that we could hardly open our eyes or
mouths, or move our arms or legs for numbness. We had been hanging for several
hours when I saw Captain Squires fall with a rattling sound down the shrouds and
his body was swept out to sea by a big wave. Next went Morrison, the cook. They
made no sound or cry but dropped like logs. I believe they had been frozen to
death standing in the rigging.

"All that Friday the men who remained
stamped their feet on the crosstrees and moved about as well as we could to keep
from freezing. Several lifelines were fired across the rigging from shore but we
were too much benumbed to pull them in. All that day we hung there and it grew
frightfully cold again at night and seemed beyond human endurance. Suddenly
about eight p.m. Engineer Charles Allen let go and went tumbling down into the
sea. Soon after Jaiby, the big mate died and went overboard. When morning came I
saw seaman Ward hanging frozen to the ratlines. He had died during the
night.

"Nelson
and I were able to live through that terrible Friday night by making a shelter.
We got on the mizzen crosstrees and cut the lashing of the mizzen top sail, that
had been furled. Into this hole we crept and were able to keep out of the wind,
but the cold was frightful. Poor Olsen tried to get into our shelter with us,
but he was under the crosstrees and unable to get around the mast and on to the
crosstrees. We tried our best to save him but could not get him, and he died
about two o'clock Saturday morning, sitting where he had been for
hours.

"Nelson
and I kept alive by beating our arms and stamping our feet. Several lines were
fired across the vessel at low tide, but Nelson was too stiff to move so I
climbed down to the deck and managed to get hold of one of the lines, but I was
so numb with cold I could not haul it in. Ice formed on it faster than I could
haul it in and it got so heavy I had to drop it.

"Then I climbed back to our perch and
beat Nelson and myself some more and waited for the weather to moderate. We had
not eaten since Friday morning and it was now Saturday night and growing colder.
If I could have had a meal of pork and beans and coffee I could have endured the
strain longer than I did. But without food I couldn't have stood it much
longer.

"About
midnight Saturday I could see, by the light of a fire built on shore, the men
coming out to us in a lifeboat. We were both badly frozen, with Nelson the
worst, and it was with greatest difficulty that we managed to get down to the
half submerged deck. We tumbled into the lifeboat and in a few minutes were on
shore. Everything possible was done for us. It took hours of rubbing to bring
back the circulation."

According to Captain Baker when the lifesavers got the men ashore,
they cut their boots off and got them into warm clothing and made them as
comfortable as possible. Their boots were grabbed by the crowd and cut into
pieces as souvenirs.

"On Sunday we launched a boat and went out to cut down the bodies
of the two men who were frozen in the rigging and bring them to shore. Every day
sleighing parties of all kinds braved the cold in crossing the frozen bay to
view the scene of the tragedy. There is a light covering of snow over the ice
and a roadway has been worn across the bay like that of a street."

The two men frozen in the
rigging and that of the mate that washed ashore near Forge River were buried in
Patchogue. The engineer was found near Moriches. Where he is buried is
unknown.

The
Brooklyn Daily Eagle's reporter stated that it was estimated over a thousand
people journeyed on the ice across Great South bay from Bellport to Bay Shore to
view the two wrecks.

"The bodies presented a horrible sight and scores of people to
satisfy their morbid curiosity went to Ruland's undertaking rooms to see them."
(Patchogue Advance, Feb. 15, 1895)

The ship completely broke up within a
few weeks. One of the masts was purchased from the owners by the village of
Patchogue, and set up in the middle of the village as a flagpole.

The residents of the south
shore procured all the soft coal they wanted by simply picking it up on the
beach and transporting it home across the frozen bay. Most of it was
sold.

Plots for eight of the sailors who perished were furnished by Mrs
Augusta Weeks at the Lakeview Cemetary in Patchogue and paid for by four Smith sisters.
Eight stones were placed,
but only four are buried there. - Gustave Jaiby, Charles Allen, August
Olson and Fritz Oscar Ward (Mard)